# Stop Trying

Source: https://www.theminimalists.com/try/
Published: 2011-05-28
Updated: 2024-06-12
Author: The Minimalists

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There you are, standing at the center of a capacious warehouse in an abandoned building somewhere at the edge of the city, empty except for a single wooden chair that sits on the dusty concrete floor underneath your feet. You look around. It’s just you and the chair and the scattered fragments of debris from several different decades and the muted sounds of the city.

Your mission: try to pick up the chair.

But this presents a unique problem, doesn’t it? You see, you can’t *try* to pick it up, either you pick it up or you don’t, you can or you can’t, you succeed or you fail, but you don’t *try*. It is impossible to try to pick up that chair.

So instead of *try*, you lift the chair and smile triumphantly. Success. There was no *try*, you just did it. You didn’t *try* to accomplish your goal, you took action and you accomplished it.

And yet you’ve failed in the past, you’ve set out to do something and you didn’t do it.

“But I *tried* really, really hard,” you say.

And therein lies the problem. *Trying* is the problem.

Stop trying; start doing…

Are you *trying* to [live a simpler, more meaningful life](https://mnmlist.com/needless)? Stop *trying*; [start living it](https://inoveryourhead.net/stop-living-the-lie-start-living-the-life/).

Are you *trying* to [declutter](https://zenhabits.net/zen-clutter/) your life? Stop *trying*; get rid of it.

Are you *trying* to start a profitable business or write a book or lose weight or be a more [positive person](https://www.becomingminimalist.com/2011/04/18/7-powerful-ways-to-supercharge-your-life-with-positivity/) or travel more often or donate more time to charity? Stop *trying*; start taking action.

What else are you *trying*? What do you want?

And do yourself a favor, *try* not to use the word try for a week, or better yet make a conscious effort to not use the word, catch yourself when you slip, notice the difference.

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